Jacques Chirac, the former president of France has died at 86.
Chirac's family told the press that he died peacefully while being surrounded by his family.
He served his full two-term presidential tenure. It was during his reign that he took the Republic of France to the single currency union.
One of his greatest legacies is reducing a presidential term from seven five years.
It was not immediately clear what was the cause of his death but media reports indicate that he has been hospitalised in the past over a lung infection.
Chirac had arguably the longest political career of a French politician having been elected twice as president, twice as prime minister and mayor of the capital city, Paris.
He came to be nicknamed as 'The Bulldozer' given his determination and irrepressible ambition.
At a time when nations were not willing to take responsibility for the holocaust that claimed the lives of many innocent Jews, he acknowledged the role that France played in the persecution of Jews.
"Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state. France, the land of the enlightenment and human rights... delivered those it protects to their executioners, " he said in 1995.
#hivisasainternational